To the Editor:
A column in Wednesday's Herald ("Calculus and pirates," Sept. 28) on the exorbitant price of calculus books, especially James Stewart's book, is excellent. In fact the author is, if anything, too generous about this very widely used book. Calculus instructors could use the following perfectly legal procedure to greatly lower the cost to the student and incidentally choose their favorite text and author: Find an edition which is out of print, perhaps even copyright-expired, and ask our bookstore to get the publisher's permission to make copies of just the chapters and sections needed, rather than of the whole gargantuan text. I have done this numerous times with good results and so have a few colleagues in math. Costs have been more like $25 than the current $180, and the pages have been much easier to carry around. Authors such as Thomas or Flanders wrote much better books than Stewart's, but out of print Stewart editions could be used if one wishes.
Bruno Harris
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
